[R] R as shelll script

[Dirk Eddelbuettel]

On Tue, May 27, 2008 at 09:28:09PM -0300, Alexandre Aguiar wrote:
> I have devised some applications of R as a scripting shell language and 
> started using it flawlessly a few months ago.
> 
> Never minded publishing it because it looked so obvious. However, a search 
> in the archives revealed there is no recent easy-to-use method proposed. 
> The latest reference I found is from 2006 
> (http://finzi.psych.upenn.edu/R/Rhelp02a/archive/81124.html) and even a c 
> wrapper has been proposed 
> (http://kavaro.fi/mediawiki/index.php/Using_R_from_the_shell).

But there are known scripting solutions:

  i)  littler was released in the summer / fall of 2006

  ii) Rscript appeared with R 2.5.0 in the spring of 2007
 
> So, here it goes an exceedingly simple example of my simple solution that 
> works pretty well:
> 
> #!/usr/local/bin/Rscript --vanilla
> update.packages(ask=F, repos="http://cran.spsconsultoria.com")
> # no need for calls to quit()
> 
> Now just chmod this properly (at least 700 is advisable) and you have an 
> executable that can be run directly from the command line.
> 
> The --vanilla option is important to avoid dissemination of .History 
> and .Rdata files in the system. But one can replace for another set of 
> options to allow the load of .Rprofile, for instance (by 
> using "--no-save  --no-restore  --no-site-file --no-environ" instead).
> 
> This has worked to me under several flavors of Linux and R since 2.2 or 2.4, 
> not sure, do not remember (it must be that german guy the doctor said I 
> can't remove from my mind :-).

As you are using Rscript, this can't have worked with R 2.2.* or 2.4.*.

Dirk

-- 
Three out of two people have difficulties with fractions.